272: The Cold Pitch That Landed JoAnne a $7800 Freelance Project

0:00JoAnne Hopkins:What if you could spot a freelance opportunity hiding in plain sight and turn it into a$7 ,800 client? That's exactly what JoAnne Hopkins did when she saw a brand looking for help on Indeed. Instead of getting lost in a thousand of the one-click applications, she did some smart sleuthing and pitched herself directly. In this episode, she shares how she used clarity, confidence, and decades of experience to land the project on her terms, and why she's finally building a freelance business that works for her. Joanne's story will inspire you to stop playing small and start getting paid for what you're actually great at.

0:33JoAnne Hopkins:You're going to love this episode. Let's get to it. Hey, fashion freelancers. Can we talk pricing for a sec? Here's the thing. Too many designers I know are charging way less than they should. That's why I created a free freelance price list just for fashion professionals like you. It breaks down what to charge for tech packs, fashion flats, product development, 3D work, and more. Whether you're just starting off or scaling up, it gives you a real starting point based on what actually works. Go ahead and grab it at soheudy.com slash price or tap the link in the show notes. Stop guessing, start charging like a pro.

1:02JoAnne Hopkins:Let's get into the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast, Joanne. Let's talk about, you landed a$7 ,800 project with a brand who posted on Indeed as like a job, which I never see these things turning into freelance. and you actually like went around the Indeed job posting, found the guy and sent him arguably a cold pitch to which he responded epically. You shared the response with me. So let's talk about the opportunity and how you landed it and dig into all of that. Sure. Like you said, there was a job posting for an Indeed job. And I do see a lot of independent people posting jobs on Indeed.

1:51And I'm pretty high to start, but I've been in the industry a long time. And for me, it's very easy to see if I'm really looking at a job posting or if I'm really looking at a freelance opportunity. And I noticed this read more like a potential freelance opportunity. And the gentleman didn't have his name in the post, but he did post it under his company. so I did a little CIA work that so many of us ladies are so good at and I looked at his company I confirmed his name and just did a little little research in general and then instead of responding to the Indeed job posting I just sent him an email with you know the same the subject line had the name of the uh the indeed job posting and i referred back to the indeed listing and i called and he responded within 24 hours and was like holy cow uh first of all uh stalker much uh second of all uh way to cold pitch me third of all let's talk so and it all went very quickly we had a discovery call within a week and he had signed a contract within 10 days and he had paid a 50 % deposit, I think within that same timeframe.

3:14JoAnne Hopkins:Oh my gosh. Now I just want to throw the disclaimer out there for people listening. It hardly ever happens this smoothly and this quickly. Very, very true. Yeah. But, um, I love that you skirted around Indeed because there's so many, and I think if they've got the one click apply and it just, you get bombarded because I've posted, job listings to hire, not for freelance, but for full-time on Indeed and on LinkedIn. And you get bombarded with applications and the one-click applies. So you really stood out by going around and taking the extra effort to find out who he was and pitch him. Yeah. Do you remember what you wrote in the email pitch to him?

3:57I think it was pretty straightforward. I just referenced the Indeed post and let him know, I thought he was looking for more of a freelance opportunity that maybe he was a startup. And just any additional like touches, like to make it personal. I acknowledged that I was going around the Indeed post and pitching him cold. And, you know, thanks to him in advance for any grace he could give me. It was pretty quick and, you know, to the point. Yeah, it was nothing special. Just kind of like if you were having a conversation and you bumped into somebody at a sidewalk, you might touch them on your shoulder and be like, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to.

4:32it was just very very sort of casual like that okay gotcha yeah and then how did you did he like

4:38JoAnne Hopkins:have a set budget or how did you ultimately quote the project and what was the 7800 for he is uh sort of in process so he had something that resembled a working sample and he had been wear testing uh he had a a contact who was interested in apparel and had some sewing skills. So he had something of substance to work with. And he just needs end-to-end design. So end-to-end design and development. There are pieces, I was very upfront with him. I told him I'd help guide him, but there are areas that I really just don't enjoy doing. So he could hire out for those and I could give him guidance as to who he could hire in the process.

5:18But then I would tackle, I love TD. TD is my jam. So I didn't want him to hire an outside TD because I would like to take on that piece. And I basically wrote him, I don't know, it's like a six page proposal. We broke it down into stages because he kind of had, has like four or five styles he thinks he wants to develop, but he's also new to the industry. And I told him to dial it down to one, we would perfect his like P zero sample and would go from there because there's a lot of education that needed to happen. He didn't count or anything. I just, you know, I know my workflow and how fast I work and what's involved.

5:57So it's just very articulate about what my fees included and what they don't. And just laid it all out and sent it over. And he was like, sold. To be clear, I think he's originally in the real estate and restaurant industry. So I think he's used to seeing very high price tags for things. He's an entrepreneur himself already in other industries. So I do think that that helps. And so my scope of work is basically anything I want to tackle. and then I'll help him find experts from things they don't. We've already contracted with members inside the community. So shout out to Caroline. She made our first sample.

6:35We just got it back. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. Caroline Coleman. Yes, yes. She's awesome.

6:39JoAnne Hopkins:She is awesome. I worked with her hands-on inside Fast Track Turbo, and she is phenomenal. I'm so glad to hear that. She's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lots of fun, lots of fun. So, yeah, we're just working through the process. you know from where we're at we just got her sample it was very good lots of things to be happy about we're going to do some iterations in 3d before we take it to another sample and I think that we'll get an approval on that and then you know we need to find him some vendors I think he wants to manufacture in the U.S. which is good for the process he's been on and you know we'll go from there eventually I'll probably pass him off to somebody else because I really love to do TD I I don't mind doing other things, but I'm a TD girly.

7:19JoAnne Hopkins:Yeah. Okay. So what exact parts of the process you said, I really want to do all the TD. Like what parts did you tell him? You know, this is not my expertise or my zone of genius or my biggest interest, but I can help you find other people. What exactly was that? Sourcing and then these early rounds, sourcing is pretty easy because I've worked in athletic apparel. So I know the fabrics and he wanted something very specific. He obviously needed low MOQs and he wanted U.S. fabric suppliers. So that narrowed it down to two. So that was easy. But when it comes to like, I do not, I didn't want to sew the sample.

7:57I mean, I have a complete setup to do that. But the thing, the bar of entry there for me is I really hate cutting. I really, really, really hate cutting. And that will keep me from sitting on my sewing machine. So, you know, we hired obviously out for that. and I'll probably help him hire out for any production piece of it and then like the sort of thing from factories. He's really, I think, far from being able to hire a factory and so in that piece I'll probably have him hire that out mostly. But a lot of the front end stuff, you know, to even get a factory vested is TD stuff. You have to have a product in hand, especially if you're going to manufacture in the U.S.

8:41So, I mean, a good tech pack, which we have, you know, I also really would like for him to just manufacture the one short, not the five style. They really would like that for him, but we'll see where he lands. He wants to do like, you know, six colors and five styles. It's like, slow your roll.

9:00JoAnne Hopkins:I love that you're acting as a consultant to him too, right? Like not, yep, I can do all this and let's just do all that. But you're really trying to advise him on the best path for success. And And I do agree it's starting small and starting slow as you learn the reps and figure out the market. Yep. I definitely thought about that when I pitched him, you know, when I sent him, you know, the proposal, knowing I have to hold his hand and teach him some things and also sometimes have uncomfortable conversations. And we were there a little bit on the fabric aspect because, you know, he has a lot of expectations, which very much narrow his options, but he didn't want narrow options.

9:37And I was like, well, you know, your reputation matters here. You can't get a reputation for being difficult as a new, you know, entry, new to the industry because you won't get, you know, good partners that will go the distance with you. So you kind of have to choose your battles. He chose to battle with me on that. That's better to battle with me than, you know, a different kind of vendor. So we had a couple of uncomfortable conversations since then, but it's been really, really good. He's been a really good client.

10:05JoAnne Hopkins:Yeah, that's amazing. So you're doing TD and helping with initial sampling and development with a little bit of sourcing, it sounds like, for one short style? So he wants all of his styles in the same fabric, just different color, because they're running shorts for men. Okay. So he's got several selections from one fabric supplier, because there's only two fabric suppliers he can possibly choose from, given all of his list of conditions. so he sent me his like pre pre pre almost not a sample proto sample um and i recreated a uh a production pattern or you know pre-production pattern to work with so that i could send that to caroline and for the sample maker so i did the td i did the sample or the pattern and then I'll go through all the fit comments.

11:06I'll get the product as ready as I can to the point where he's ready to pitch his work to different factories. But that's documentation. So that's the tech pack and I think we're kind of working on we're going back and forth about grade rules and things like that but that all falls under T. So So I think a lot of this project is, the bulk of it is TD. I think the sourcing aspect and the finding the right vendor for him are going to be easier than this TD part just because he's new and he needs to understand what he is making. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

11:46JoAnne Hopkins:Okay, so you were really transparent with him initially about the stuff that you do and don't do and what you would outsource. How are you handling some of that outsourcing? I know you said you're finding people in the fast community, but are you managing that and getting a separate price and then kind of bundling that in? Or are you just connecting him with the person and then they're directly working with him one-on-one for pricing? Because a lot of people have these questions about how to pull in other freelancers with their clients. Sure. In this case, I would say it's a little bit unusual.

12:15I'm keeping him away from costing and pricing at the moment because he keeps saying wild things like, I don't care what the shorts cost. We'll just, you know, change the retail price. And I'm like, it's not untrue and wildly untrue at the same time. And so I'm just sort of stripping away anything that's going to confuse him in the process. But in terms of finding partners for him, one, I've done a lot of U.S. manufacturing. So I have some people I might connect him to. Of course, there are other, you know, there are members of the community that might be interested. So when we get there, when I feel like he has a product that a factory would pick up and it wouldn't be a headache to anybody, we'll start.

12:57I'll tap my individual resources. I'll tap the community and I'll have to present options to him because he does like options. It's just his nature. And then we're going to get real about cost. We know what the sample will cost and I can give him an idea of what his factory costs are going to be. But ultimately, you know, every if he picks I want to potentially work with three vendors and he's going to have to, you know, roll out some dough to get that done. It's going to be up to him. So I let I try to let him guide the process as much as possible while not letting him go to astray. Right. Right.

13:33Yeah. We're going to have our hands in a lot of buckets for a minute.

13:37JoAnne Hopkins:Yeah, for sure. So, like, for example, Caroline, who did the sample sewing. yep yes we love her um she's been on the podcast too you guys usually everyone would love her episode uh we'll link to that in the show notes but like did you just connect him directly with her and then she put a proposal together for him independent or did she kind of work under you and then you manage that yeah i gave her the option so i initially reached out advised her what we were looking for asked her if she was interested i let him know um what my recommendation was and based on conversations i tapped a couple other sample makers but i thought caroline would be not only a great person but a great personality fit if we did need to loop him in um to the process ultimately caroline decided it would be better for the pipeline for her and i to work together and i could just report back to him kind of in a pd function uh so essentially she wrote me the proposal he you know made those payments I think actually via Venmo um and then I just made sure everybody you know everybody paid with their foot and paid and but I I'm the one and I signed the proposal from Carol and I um and I did let you know and I can work both ways I don't really mind um I think that everything comes out the watch eventually and having a good vendor if they want to work directly with the client I'm okay with that if they want me to be the intermediary I'm okay with that so I try to be flexible because I think both can work yeah absolutely well thanks for sharing that I just it comes up a lot so I was curious how you started it for this project yep now you uh I know because you've told me an email you have done a lot of permalancing over you've been in the industry for a long time where do you live I'm currently in Tampa Florida originally from Chicago lived in Columbus Ohio for 15 years at LA to Tampa I've been I've been everywhere.

15:30Okay. But I've been in Tampa for 10 years now. Okay.

15:35JoAnne Hopkins:Yeah, you've done a lot of permalancing. And if I'm not mistaken, it's more recent-ish that you're leaning into more of the real freelancing, where you're working independently with clients when and where you want. You're putting proposals together, setting the prices, et cetera. Yep. Can you talk a little bit about your past and permalancing and how you had a phase out of that and into freelancing? Sure. It's really convoluted for me because there's a lot of pieces and parts that sort of fit together like a very unique puzzle piece. And I have done a lot of permalancing, but I've also done a lot of, I guess what we would call like OG freelancing.

16:17so especially like um when i was in chicago and when i was in columbus i did work with a lot of indie people developing you know specific products here and there i worked on contract in you know in bridal um i've done alterations i've worked in tailor shops i've done a lot of different things i have some celebrity clientele i've worked as a costume designer a couple of films i mean i've been all over the place and everywhere um since I've been here in Tampa uh so there's a there's a transition period because in the middle of my career I launched a swimwear brand and so I had my own swimwear company for about I don't know eight nine ten years I did pretty well um you know I was selling to 14 countries uh not my bad yeah I mean it really did like I we launched on Instagram I think it was like one of the first 10 companies to actually build a whole pipeline on Instagram and within six months I like I had like more than a quarter million dollars in sales it was a whole thing my company grew too fast like there is that is a thing um I couldn't scale appropriately I burned out really quick and then when I came to Tampa I was like I'm taking a break a well-earned break it was like a life break you know without getting too nitty-gritty with like I I put my business on pause, a very long term relationship ended.

17:46We were just like resetting the universe. And when I got to Tampa, I was like, oh, my God, I never want to own my own brand ever again. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to go back to that. So I had to reinvent what I wanted to do because I love apparel and I wanted to have the same power. So for a while, I just like did this like really cool, fun thing. So here in Tampa, they have something called Gasparilla. It's a series of parades. You can think of it like Mardi Gras, but for pirates. And it's been going on for like 120 years. And there are almost 100 different crews. And they all wear these wacky, crazy costumes.

18:27So for my first few years in Tampa, I designed small collections for these crews. They all have themes. And I did genuine contract work through an organization that's here, local in Tampa. And so I did everything from sourcing to sewing costumes, like literally end to end. And that took its own course. But I had an opportunity then to work permalance for Nike and Fanatics. So it was there that I learned a lot of things, as we do. In between, I'm always working in small projects here and there. but it was right before I spent the year at IE on or at Fanatics on Nike's jersey team that I actually invested in your program and right-sized myself if you will and was like oh okay I've been working upstream all these years shame on me and and through that I started reorganizing and refining what I wanted to do and who I was This is where I accepted that I love TV, that I literally can give design away.

19:45I can give sorting away, get everything away, but braided specs and patterns. So I stripped that away and then just started. I don't know. I feel like it was a really like personal journey. It's not like I went out into the world with like fine contracts, fine customers. I think it was a really strong refining process for me learning myself again after all these years in the industry. And I think that's really important. I think you talk about mindset and clarity. And I think that mindset and clarity have taken me far and away farther than any other hard set skill that I might have at apparel.

20:23But I people have this really weird way of finding me. So I haven't done a whole lot of marketing in the traditional sense. but you know while I was at Fanatics I was working with a couple of different agencies in Los Angeles as a side you know like an individual pattern maker for people

20:40JoAnne Hopkins:that were they were producing their garments domestically and so I mean just like weird little side projects here and there and then yeah my contract at Fanatics and Nike ended and since then um it's been a focus on you know again what do I want to do who do I want to be and we just get to get refined I kind of feel like in my freelance work I I want to I want to do men's swim or men's active I don't want to do women's swim or women's active I want to do TV for men's swim so it just it keeps I feel like every day is evolving I mean, every day I get a different opportunity to decide whether, you know, yes, this is an alignment.

21:31No, this is not an alignment. And I think I gave you a very vague, scattered answer. But I think that's the best I could share.

21:40JoAnne Hopkins:I think you did great. I love, I mean, I hear you kind of thinking out loud and processing through the steps and the journey you've been through, as well as the personal development you've experienced along the way of finding what you want for your life and what you want to do in this industry side note I love this niche of technical design for men's swimwear like it's so beautifully niche I am I'm booting here with this idea yeah yeah no i worked so um i did between as somewhere like right after the pandemic i did work for a swimwear company that is local here in tampa they produce they're vertically integrated so they do all their manufacturing right here uh in clear water um and that's where i first got my hands on men's swim and when i say i got my hands i'm talking about itty bitty teeny weeny tiny men's little banana hammocks yes yes absolutely sometimes not even a banana or a hammock okay got it got the memo got the visual yeah sorry about that um but it's it's you know it's a it's an engineering challenge right um so yeah uh yeah i love and i i love men's men's swim i don't it's it's really fun and actually that pairs nicely toward like men like things like the running short set products and they just recently got because yeah i mean it's not their sisters are brothers if you will um you know or maybe even cousins they're not identical but they are adjacent enough that you can you know i can tip my feet in the pool and feel like i'm going to deliver a good work product so totally totally i love that we'll get back to the episode in 20 seconds but real quick a question if you have ever caught yourself thinking is this too much to charge or what do other freelancers quote for this you are not alone i created a freelance price list just for fashion freelancers like you and it's absolutely free it outlines real world ranges for design tech packs pattern making and even 3d it is based on my 15 years of industry experience and over a thousand fast grads many of whom are now out earning their old full-time salaries download it now at soheady.com slash price the link is in the show notes now back to the episode all right you said a couple things i want to really dig into first you said you got to tampa and you said i never want to have my own brand again talk to us a little bit about that because a lot of people want their own brand and i'm curious yeah okay so i'm willing to get like a raw i give you like the the full the full tea so if i uh drop an f-bomb here or there you know correct me if I'm not allowed to okay you're allowed to um I had this really unique opportunity come to my front door I initially as I was transitioning out of uh the first 10 years of my career which was mostly in bridal I had an opportunity to make something that's stretched and back then they didn't teach you pattern making in fashion school uh for stretch so I had to learn that mix myself I found a mentor and I found it really like that so that sort of kicked off my journey into working with non-woven materials, stretch materials in swim and athletic and that stuff.

24:58And my initial desire was to get more flexibility. I am a single mom, a three-time

25:04JoAnne Hopkins:boy mom, and my kids span, you know, millennials to gen alpha. So I had a lot of varied needs in my family. I couldn't, I really had a lot of people to think about, not just me and my career. So it felt like maybe I would have more control over my career if I just launched a brand, I really, at the time, this is like, you know, way ahead of the curve. I really wanted to launch an all cotton athletic, um, athleisure brand, which is starting to pop off now is like, again, but, um, so I started planning for that. Um, you know, I, uh, I partnered a little bit with, you know, some known industry, uh, professionals.

25:48I don't like to name drop, but you've had some of these people on your podcast. If you know, you know. And somewhere along that initial process, somebody else came to me, a now very, very like famous person, almost anybody would know them if I said their name, was like, I need this very specific swim product made for me. Can you do it? And we went on this adventure together and had this little like side business for a handful of months and I was like I really like this and then all of a sudden people I did not know just started pouring on asking me to make things for them and this is like at the dawn of Instagram right so um I had a couple of you know ladies in this niche industry uh it was okay so we were making swim for the stage for female bodybuilders as the bikini division was becoming a thing in you know the NPC and the WBFF and all of these you know it's sort of so that was sort of the niche but I had all these young ladies that were like I really loved the way these suits fit me I was like okay I'm doing something right and so we sort of employed them in an influencer influencer capacity before influencers were the thing and they went out and got orders and orders and gangbusters and before like within three months i was like in full business um and it over the course of those 10 years like i said we were selling direct to customer um we had a full like custom order uh system online uh we were selling to 14 or 15 different countries uh and with the speed that happened it was virtually unscalable like i know that now i learned the pieces and parts of the apparel industry i absolutely can't stand and so my big sticking point was i want to talk to customers like i know that sounds like a really crappy thing to say but i just don't want to interface with the public um because i found myself getting really frustrated when they didn't understand my my jargon and that's a that is a me issue i'll take accountability for that but there were a lot of heated discussions that probably did not need to happen but then you actually have additional layers from the particular niche client because they're very driven they're very focused they have spent thousands of dollars on trainers and meal programs they have virtually no carbs in their body they nobody is patient so there was a there was like a big problem bubbling in my organization that I just could not solve and so one of the apparel aspects that burnt me out it was customers I'll give you an example and no shade to the person that was on the other end of this but I had purchased a brand car.

28:49I had been driving it for a month. I had all of my packages in my car to go to, you know, the post office to deliver said packages. And I got rear-ended. And that wrecked my day, obviously. And it delayed my getting to the post office, especially because the car had more damage than I initially thought. So the next day, I redid those same packages, but I sent them overnight. The customer also essentially was going to get those packages at the same time. The extra was on me, but I had a bad day. I didn't communicate that to anybody because I really didn't think it was anybody's business whether it was a car accident that disrupted my day, but I had a customer who called me a lot of colorful names saying that I was dishonest because I told her the package was on its way to her because I I told her the package was coming to her because I was on my way to the post office, not having any idea that my car.

29:50I mean, she came with receipts and a lot of heat. And it was sort of that incident that I felt like I was like, first of all, I don't need to share my life with my customers. And they should be able to understand that life happens. I didn't like the dynamic. And I kind of this is where I started. Like, I need a change of pace. I need a change of scenery. I need a change of life. Dear Lord, help me. and then I had the opportunity to move. It was a win-win for me and my kids. We did that and then I arrived and I was like, yeah, I don't need to do that. I don't need to interface with the people who are not able to maintain their sanity for whatever reason.

30:31And if I ever find myself in that position again, then I just need to be able to hire somebody a very high rate of pay who wants to do that because I don't. But my business grew too fast to be, I could not structure it in that way. There was no, no way to do that. So the big sticking point was just not wanting to interface with people who were not apparel in apparel industry insiders, because I could not deal with the high level explanations or the judgment.